Food glorious food.

I'm eating between five and seven meals a day at the moment. It should be seven but I miss some of the snacks when work gets busy! I'm also allowed to be a bit more relaxed at the weekend with 2 'naughty' meals like a take out.

My morning routine depends on exercise plans that morning. If it is a run or swim I have banana and I take oatcakes out with me to get used to eating on the hoof. Nairns do these great ones with fruit and spices in. Yum. If I'm out on my bike I have a banana and a bowl of porridge and take the oatcakes out with me to keep something in my tummy. It doesn't matter whether I need to eat nutritionally, if has been a couple of hours since eating, my stomach starts to complain. ;-)

When I get to work I have a mixing bowl of porridge. My colleagues laughed at me to begin with but they have got used to me now!

My mid-morning snack is something simple like an apple, satsuma or plums.

Lunch is also carb based with pasta, rice or a jacket potato. This is great cause there is a cafe round the corner that does great pasta. It is also fairly easy to bring stuff from home. (Having said that, I can count on one hand the amount of times I have taken my lunch in!)

Afternoon snack is yogurt. I buy the big pots of bio yogurt and keep it in the fridge at work. I eat as much as I feel like!

Dinner is an important meal for reloading the protein for rebuilding the muscles over night and lots of yummy vegetables. I try to have no carbs with this meal so I don't store it as fat over night.

My final snack of the day is a bowl of muesli before bed, but only if I have a run or swim in the morning.

I have absolutely no idea how many calories I'm eating or fat, protein and carbs, but I do know that I am slowly loosing weight and trimming up. What is more I feel great!

Discipline

Up until recently, I was really enjoying my new found discipline and routine.

I was getting up at 6am, doing my morning exercises of stretches or yoga then stretches and then heading out for a run, swim or bike ride.

I was eating a banana each morning before heading out, followed by a small vat of porridge when I got to work. Pasta for lunch, yogurt for afternoon snack and vegetables and meat or fish for tea.

I was packing the next days kit before I went to bed for 10pm.

I was working for me. I was feeling great both from the diet, sleep and from the exercise.

I think I'm currently having a wee 'break' from my new routine. Chocolate is back on the menu, carbs are back in the evening meal (although this was needed anyway) and late nights are creeping in.

I think I'll start my routine again when I come back from my holiday at the end of February. I'm in London until tonight then I go on holiday to Glencoe on Friday, not back in to 'normality' until the following Monday so no point resurrecting the routine until then.

Oh well. At least I can try to be good!

Breakfast

2/3 of what it should be, I just can't stomach that much porridge yet!

I love winter...

For the beauty,

For the wildness

And for the skiing!

Life's little challenges - Puntures

I hate them, I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.

I the last 3 weeks I have had approximately 7 issues with tubes, pumps and horrid little bits of glass that you need a microscope to see.




I have walked for litterally hours. I have spent hours changing and re changing and re changing.

This morning I was about to set out for a ride when I descovered I had a flat. I took it out, turned the tyre inside out, held it under the spot light. I pumped up the tube, patched the hole. Pumped it up again, checked for more holes. Put the whole lot back together again and .... A minute in to the ride the bike was feeling sluggish. Went home, checked the tyre pressure - 40 psi, down from 120 litrally minutes before. Now an hour later? Totally flat.

I don't know what to do. I am now scared of going out on my bike incase I get another puncture and I'm in the middle of nowhere.

I want to scream and cry and stamp my feet but I know it wont solve the problem. I just screamed in the shower, it hasn't helped and I'm now concerned the neighbours are going to call the police!

Can anyone help me? Please?